Lost in America

Friday

Dec 6, 2013 at 12:01 AMDec 6, 2013 at 3:58 PM

Madison Taylor / Times-News

MSN.com called it “Ten Things Disappearing from America.” That’s a provocative title for an online feature, no question about it. I certainly wanted to click on it and find out what those things might be.

After reading it, however, I started to think of alternate names for this particular listing.

How about: “Ten Things that will send some Americans Immediately into a Bar-Hopping Depression.”

Or this: “Ten Things that are Almost, but not quite as Sad as the Christmas Cheer Listings Published in the Newspaper.”

And maybe: “Ten Things you Sort of Knew but Wish you didn’t about America Today.”

Of the optional titles, No. 3 fits most items on this particular list. Who wasn’t aware, for example, that Trans fats are on the way out? The nation’s food cops have been profiling and trying to pull this crowd over with blue lights flashing and sirens blaring for a decade. Soon, a decent French fry won’t be available for artery-clogging consumption anywhere in America except your grandma’s house in Alabama.

And there were a few others on the shrug-and-move-on list. Cursive writing was one. Future generations of Americans won’t be able to sign their names with more than a squiggly and largely illegible “X” but they will be able to text using one thumb to create strings of indecipherable non-existent acronyms in order to reconstitute the entire contents of “War and Peace” in two screens.

No one will be able to understand it, of course. But that’ll probably be OK. I doubt education will exist in the future either if recent testing is to be believed.

Other things that are disappearing, according to MSN.com, include traditional bank branches, emergency rooms, prairies, cars and bees. Not sure I get the deal with cars. Seems the roads are lousy with them. Then again, if Amazon and UPS are looking into delivery of packages by drones then anything might be crashing willy-nilly into buildings soon enough.

Then I got to the depressing part.

BECAUSE I read the list Alamance County Christmas Cheer director Dawn Sternal sends over a couple of times a week, the sobering part of MSN.com’s list didn’t shock me much.

According to MSN.com among the things that are disappearing in America today are “real wages.”

Here’s what they reported.

“While workers at McDonald’s and Wal-Mart have made headlines protesting minimum wages, the issue of low pay is much more widespread,” wrote MSN. “Half of U.S. workers made less than $27,519 in 2012, about four bucks less than they earned in 2011 — but nearly $1,000 off median wages’ all-time peak in 2007. Meanwhile, total real wages per American were 6 percent off their 2007 levels.”

Indeed.

The Christmas Cheer lists of families in need of sponsorship for the holidays mirrors this finding. While unemployment is a central theme in many cases, the thing that crops up more often this year than ever before is underemployment. In case after case I read about people who once had full-time jobs that are now only part time. Companies are cutting hours in order to also eliminate benefits. Some contend the new Affordable Care Act mandates are forcing their hands. For small businesses, this is a very real scenario. But larger corporations are often trying to improve the bottom line and develop bigger bonuses for their executives.

As MSN reported, “In 2012, there were 27 percent more Americans making more than $5 million than in 2011, and total wages for this group grew by 40 percent.”

Hmmm.

There’s a word for it. Depressing.

THE FINAL two items on MSN.com’s list also don’t bode well for American workers.

No. 1 with a bullet: Pensions. Here’s what MSN had to say about it.

“American pensions have been circling the drain for decades as Wall Street companies have tried to shed their high costs for much more bottom-line-friendly 401ks, which put the onus on the worker. Between 1985 and 2012, the U.S. has lost roughly 85,000 pension plans. The number of Fortune 100 companies that offer only a 401k or similar plan and no traditional or hybrid pension plan has been rocketing, too. In 1998, only 10 members offered just a 401k. That figure reached 27 by 2004, 53 by 2008, 63 by 2010 and 70 as of last year.”

That gold watch and retirement thing is the modern day unicorn, ladies and gentlemen.

MSN also says that workers in America are more frequently waking up to a world where there is no paid vacation or holiday time. That’s not a huge trend yet, though. In fact, 77 percent of American workers still get paid vacation days. But that’s down from 80 percent a few years ago and among industrial nations around the world, it’s pretty low.

At first I debated reporting this paid vacation news, figuring that some members of the Alamance County Board of Commissioners might consider it a good money-saving idea when the budget is put together next year.

And we don’t need anything else disappearing from Alamance County.

Madison Taylor is editor of the Times-News. Contact him at mtaylor@thetimesnews.com